Sunday, September 17, 2006

The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs

The perfect Sunday book,
The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs, abandoned by me last year (and I'm sure it was this book, I remember this cover) and now resurrected by Susan Hill over on her blog with free copies on offer. Having disgraced myself with an incomplete library read and hasty dismissal I felt undeserving of a gift copy and bought one as penance.So WHY did I give up on this first time round? I've started it again and it is reading gently and clearly and quite beautifully. My new copy has a different, monochrome cover, these never fail to appeal to dovegreyreader sensibilities,has that helped? This is not a book to rush, more one to savour a few pages of before you drop off to sleep or one to pick up if you find yourself awake at 3am.When I look at the map in the front of the book, our house is almost on it.It's a book with a keen sense of place, our place, there's the River Tamar with the amazing Endsleigh loop in the river (the only river I've seen that actually flows round a very sharp 90 degree corner) and Kit Hill beyond.Here's the view, taken yesterday, that we wake up to every morning when we open the bedroom curtains and there's Kit Hill in the distance.I could (and probably do) spend hours just staring at it.I must have been on a very distant and different reading planet when I first picked up this book.More about it soon.

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The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs

The perfect Sunday book,
The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs, abandoned by me last year (and I'm sure it was this book, I remember this cover) and now resurrected by Susan Hill over on her blog with free copies on offer. Having disgraced myself with an incomplete library read and hasty dismissal I felt undeserving of a gift copy and bought one as penance.So WHY did I give up on this first time round? I've started it again and it is reading gently and clearly and quite beautifully. My new copy has a different, monochrome cover, these never fail to appeal to dovegreyreader sensibilities,has that helped? This is not a book to rush, more one to savour a few pages of before you drop off to sleep or one to pick up if you find yourself awake at 3am.When I look at the map in the front of the book, our house is almost on it.It's a book with a keen sense of place, our place, there's the River Tamar with the amazing Endsleigh loop in the river (the only river I've seen that actually flows round a very sharp 90 degree corner) and Kit Hill beyond.Here's the view, taken yesterday, that we wake up to every morning when we open the bedroom curtains and there's Kit Hill in the distance.I could (and probably do) spend hours just staring at it.I must have been on a very distant and different reading planet when I first picked up this book.More about it soon.

Constants...

Team Tolstoy

Team TolstoyA year-long shared read of War & Peace through the centenary year of Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy's death, starting on his birthday, September 9th 2010.
Everyone is welcome to board the troika and read along, meeting here on the 9th of every month to chat in comments about the book.

Team Tolstoy BookmarkDon't know your Bolkonskys from your Rostovs?
An aide memoire that can be niftily printed and laminated into a double-sided bookmark.

Port Eliot Festival

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